Sunday, November 6, 2016

A Vote—Your Vote—for Justice in Wayne County

Libertarian David Afton has seemingly taken on Mission Impossible. He’s running against incumbent, some might say entrenched, Kym Worthy for Wayne County Prosecutor. Kym Worthy, who is black, has waged a vicious and vindictive battle to keep Richard J. Wershe, Jr., who is white, in prison until he dies for telling the FBI about corruption in Detroit’s black power structure. Sadly, many people see this as a racial issue. In truth, is a justice issue. If anyone has raised the specter of race, it is Worthy. Tuesday every voter in Wayne County has an opportunity to vote for Justice, which is why they should vote for David Afton.

Trying to defeat Kym Worthy isn't easy.


David Afton, a Dearborn attorney and former assistant Wayne County prosecutor is fighting an uphill battle. There’s no question about that. If you live in or know someone who lives in Livonia, Grosse Pointe Woods, Allen Park or Redford Township, you can help him. He’s taken on incumbent Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy, a productive of, and member in good standing of, the Detroit/Wayne County black political machine. Most, but not all, members of that political machine are black. White career politicians are part of it, too. It’s as much a geographical clique as it is racial. It’s about the urban power structure of the City of Detroit and portions of Wayne County. If you cross it, you’re in for a nasty fight. One of the political goons of the Detroit/Wayne County power clique is Prosecutor Kym Worthy. She’s immensely powerful, but every four years she has to run for re-election. This is one of those years. If you live in or know someone who lives in Canton Township, Belleville, Dearborn Heights or Harper Woods you can help defeat Kym Worthy at the voting booth.


David Afton campaigning for Wayne County Prosecutor




How unjust is Kym Worthy? Just ask Richard J. Wershe, Jr., now in the 28th year of a life prison term for a non-violent drug case committed in Detroit when he was a teenager. Wershe did wrong. No argument about that. He tried to become a cocaine wholesaler after a federal drug task force recruited him—at age 14—to become a paid informant against a politically connected drug gang. When the feds were through with him, when they got what they needed to make a big drug case, they kicked him to the curb to fend for himself. He was a kid from a dysfunctional family and the only trade he knew was the one the cops taught him—the dope trade. He was wrong to try to get in to that racket but he was an immature kid, not an adult career criminal.

Hundreds of other guys like him have been paroled or had their sentences reduced. But Kym Worthy has fought all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court to keep Wershe in prison. The Informant America blog has shown in exhaustive detail in previous posts, that claims that Wershe was a major drug dealer are flat-out lies. As Ralph Musilli, Wershe’s appeals attorney says, Rick Wershe told on the wrong people. Politically powerful people. He cost those people a lot of money. Now, Kym Worthy, a hack for certain people in power in Detroit/Wayne County, is engaged in a massive injustice against Wershe as payback for telling the FBI about her corrupt pals.


Others have taken on seemingly impossible fights and won. The tale of David and Goliath is one example. In Wayne County in 2016 David is David Afton and Goliath is incumbent Kym Worthy.



David Afton says if he’s elected Wayne County Prosecutor one of the first things he would do is inform Wershe’s case judge, Dana Hathaway of Wayne County Circuit Court, that the Prosecutor’s office no longer opposes a sentence reduction for Wershe to what amounts to time served.

But Afton says exchanging injustice for justice in Wayne County is about more than Rick Wershe. “Some people seemed to see it as a white versus black thing. I’ve tried to make it clear I’m against all injustices,” Afton told me last week. “There are a lot of injustices going on and we have to take them on one by one. This is an egregious one and we have to address all of them. It doesn’t matter if they are white or black. We will address all of them.”
If you live in or know someone who lives in Plymouth, Flat Rock, Van Buren Township, Grosse Pointe Shores or Westland you can vote for a new Wayne County Prosecutor or you can urge someone you know in one of those communities to do so.


One call, then another, then another. Before you know it, the odds can be changed.




A last-minute daisy-chain of phone calls can have a multiplier effect. Voters need to understand this is about more than Rick Wershe. It’s bigger than Rick Wershe. It’s about ousting a politician who abuses the considerable power conferred on her by the voters. The Harvard Law School’s Fair Punishment Project last summer singled out Kym Worthy, out of the estimated 2,400 prosecutors in the country, as “an extreme outlier” in her harsh treatment of juveniles in the criminal justice system. An outlier is someone who is an oddity, an exception to the rule, an extreme example. Kym Worthy has shown she has no understanding of words like fairness and justice. All she knows is punishment because she thinks that’s what will keep getting her elected and living off the taxpayers.


Kym Worthy - The voters get to decideif she is the face of Justice in Wayne County for four more years.




The odds are in Kym Worthy’s favor, no doubt about that. She's black. She's female. That's enough for many people who think it would be racist to vote for anyone else. It's an added burden in this election fight. But the Chicago Cubs just showed the world that perseverance can make a difference.


Upsets have happened before.





Michigan is not a big early-voting state. Most people go to the polls. That’s why there’s a chance for individuals to make a difference at the voting booth.

David Afton says win or lose, he’s going to stick with the citizen movement to get fair justice for Richard J. Wershe, Jr. “No matter what happens I’m still going to be a part of that,” Afton said. “This guy needs to get out.”






   

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